Friday, June 11, 2010

**MANGLORE PLANE CRASH**
DATED:22-05-2010
Air India Express aircraft crashed at the Mangalore airport, killing 158 people on Saturday morning. According to survivors, eyewitnesses and ATC sources, the problems started after the aircraft started landing. It looks like the aircraft went out of control.

At around 6:00 am on Saturday, four miles short of the runway, the Air Traffic Controller cleared the pilot for touchdown. The pilot acknowledged. This was the last communication between the pilot and the ATC.
The pilot was landing on ILS or the Instrument landing System, which has two features, the Localiser which aligns the plane to the centre of the runway and the Glide scope which helps the pilot to set his angle of approach.
ATC sources told that the pilot was flying much above the appropriate approach angle which could be why the plane touched down 2000 feet beyond the actual touchdown point on the runway. This left the pilot with only 5000 feet to bring the plane to a halt.
Former Director General of Civil Aviation, Kanu Gohain, said: "The pilot says established on ILS. That means he is in line with the runway and he is on the glide slope. As he was following those signals on the ILS, he should have touched down exactly at the ILS touchdown point at 1000. You are in touchdown point and another 2000 to 5000 ft is the available length of the runway. Still that could have been used to stop the plane by using the braking system and thrust reversals. At the most, the plane would have gone beyond that runway and stooped in the runway end safety area."
Soon after touchdown, the ATC made the routine request for the plane to back track towards the terminal but got no answer. Survivor accounts also suggest that within seconds of touching down one of the tyres of the aircraft might have burst.
Omar Farooq, a survivor, said: "Tyre burst while landing so the plane skidded of the runway, hit the boundary wall and exploded. The plane cracked open and I jumped out. I ran almost 500 mts and people later rushed to a hospital. I have suffered injuries but I'm okay."
The plane then hit an ILS antenna, rammed the boundary wall and fell right into the gorge ahead. Experts say there are many questions that need to be answered.
H S Khola asked what was the weight of the aircraft, what was the length of the runway and was it safe enough to land in that much length? What was the touchdown speed of the aircraft and was the deceleration system working fully?"
Gohain further said: "When the investigation is carried on it has to be established from the flight data recorder at what point he touched down, how much in the runway he had had and what was the engine power at that time. What was the speed at the time of touchdown? These are the parameters which have to be considered to establish why the pilot could not stop the plane within the available length of the runway."
Most of these may be answered when the flight data recorder or Black Box is recovered.

ACCIDENT DETAILS
Date: May 22, 2010
Time: 06:10
Location: Mangalore, India
Operator: Air India Express
Flight #: 812
Route: Dubai, UAE - Mangalore, India
AC Type: Boeing 737-8HG
Registration: VT-AXV
cn / ln: 36333/2481
Aboard: 166 (passengers:160 crew:6)
Fatalities: 158 (passengers:? crew:?)
Ground: 0
Summary: While attempting to land at Mangalore Airport, the plane overran the runway, slid down a ravine into a wooded valley, and burst into flames.
**AMBANI BROTHERS END NON-COMPETE AGREEMENTS**
DATED:24-05-2010
New Delhi: The Ambani brothers took a step towards reconciliation of their long-running feud on Sunday, ending non-compete agreements in a step they hoped would lead to cooperation between the two groups.
Both groups said they hoped to reach a conclusion soon in a gas supply agreement between Reliance Industries (RIL) and Anil's Reliance Natural Resources that had been at the heart of their dispute.

"RIL and Reliance ADA Group are hopeful and confident that all these steps will create an overall environment of harmony, co-operation and collaboration between the two groups, thereby further enhancing overall shareholder value for shareholders of both groups," both companies said in statements.
The announcement comes weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in Mukesh Ambani's favour in a bitter dispute over gas pricing that had made headlines, riven India's richest family and raised questions about the influence of big business on government policy.
On Sunday, Reliance Industries and Anil's Reliance ADA Group said they had agreed to cancel all existing non-compete pacts which the groups had signed in 2006 and entered into a new and simpler non-compete pact only for gas-based power generation.
"If you weigh the positives and negatives, this is more positive for Reliance Industries than R-ADAG group, because this gives Reliance an opportunity to look into expansion in other areas, which they were not allowed to do earlier," said S.P. Tulsian, an independent investment consultant.
"You can't rule out the possibility of Reliance entering in sectors such as telecom," said Tulsian.
The two brothers, who both live in Mumbai but had not been on speaking terms during their dispute, inherited their business empires from their father Dhirubhai Ambani in 2005.
Mukesh got the jewel - Reliance Industries, which has interests in oil and gas exploration, petrochemicals, infrastructure and textiles. Anil got the telecoms, power and financial services businesses.
**WHO ARE FRIENDS**
DATED:26-05-2010

Friends are often an important part of our lives. Our friends are usually people we trust and respect. Like any relationship, friendships generally require work and making changes to the friendship is not uncommon.
It may not be easy to maintain friendships and sometimes friends disappoint you. This can make it difficult to work out who your friends are. Listing what makes a good friend may help you do this. Sometimes trusting your gut feeling about something may also help answer the questions you have. Check out the Maintaining happy relationships fact sheet for more information on helping to keep a strong friendship.
Sharing ideas and opinions with each other is part of having a friendship. Holding different ideas is normal and these differences may lead to arguments. You may feel hurt, disappointed, angry, sad or lonely when you disagree with a friend. These feelings may make it difficult to manage the argument.
Working through a disagreement may make the friendship stronger. Some suggestions for helping to resolve an argument and disagreement with friends may include:

1.Wanting to stay friends : Wanting to understand and accept the differences gives you a place to start. Doing this still allows you both to have to different opinions, however through understanding each other you may be able to agree to disagree.

2.Speak to your friend :Letting your friend know how you feel may be helpful. Keeping stuff to yourself may make you more angry. It is a good idea to speak to them when you both feel calm. It may help to write down your thoughts before talking, this may help you to be clear about what you want to say. Talking to someone else you trust can also help you to work out how you are going to approach your friend. People you could talk to may include another friend, a family member or youth worker. If you decide to talk to someone, try focusing on how you feel rather than what the friend has done or said.

3.Listen to your friend : Allowing your friend to tell their side of the story and really listening to them may be helpful in managing the argument. It may be tempting to interrupt, but instead, try and wait until they have finished.

4.Try to avoid blame :When you are hurt and angry it can be normal to want to blame someone. Laying blame may make a situation harder. To avoid laying blame it may be helpful to stay focused on how you feel.

5.Ending a friendship :Over time your interests may change, which can mean you have less in common with your friend and ending the friendship may be the best thing for you. When a friendship ends it may involve several people and it may be difficult to stay part of a group. This may be lonely and it can take time to move on. Talking to someone you trust like another friend, family member, youth worker or counsellor may be helpful.
**In Soviet Russia, Lake Contaminates You**
DATED:27-05-2010

In late 1945, along the banks of the Techa River in the Soviet Union, a dozen labor camps sent 70,000 inmates to begin construction of a secret city. Mere months earlier the United States’ Little Boy and Fat Man bombs had flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaving Soviet leaders salivating over the massive power of the atom. In a rush to close the gap in weapons technology, the USSR commissioned a sprawling plutonium-production complex in the southern Ural mountains. The clandestine military-industrial community was to be operated by Russia’s Mayak Chemical Combine, and it would come to be known as Chelyabinsk-40.
Within a few years the newfangled nuclear reactors were pumping out plutonium to fuel the Soviet Union’s first atomic weapons. Chelyabinsk-40 was absent from all official maps, and it would be over forty years before the Soviet government would even acknowledge its existence. Nevertheless, the small city became an insidious influence in the Soviet Union, ultimately creating a corona of nuclear contamination dwarfing the devastation of the Chernobyl disaster.
**ANTONOV-THE WORLDS HEAVIEST AND LARGEST JET**
DATED:27-05-2010

The Antonov An-225 is the world’s heaviest and largest jet for strategic airlift transport built by Antonov Design Bureau. It is larger than the Airbus A380 airliner and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest airplane. It has a landing gear system of 32 wheels and a wing span of 291 feet and designed for the Soviet space program in 1988 to airlift the Energia rocket’s booster, Buran space shuttle or ultra-heavy and oversize freight up to 250,000 kg internally or 200,000 kg on the upper fuselage.
**THE FLATMOBILE-WORLD'S LOWEST STREET CAR**
DATED:27-05-2010

Officially in the Guinness World Record for lowest street legal car, the Flatmobile stands at just 19 inch or 48 cm tall. You can check the build progress of the FlatMoble at the FlatMobile website. The car is rear mounted with a 875cc engine for propulsion. Obviously inspired from Batmobile, Perry Watkins from England is the proud owner of the FlatMobile.
**SIXHSENSE-WILL CHANGE FUTURE**
DATED:29-05-2010

The SixthSense is a wearable gestural interface that lets natural hand gestures interact with digital information. In other words, it's the computer interface that you have watching in every science fiction film made in the last ten years. Imagine a watch appearing on your wrist when you tap on it, or a phone call being placed after tapping out a phone number on the palm of your hand. Still a prototype, the SixthSense's hardware components are coupled in a wearable device with a projector and a camera connected to the computer. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and objects to be used as computer interfaces; while the camera tracks the user's hand gestures using computer-vision based techniques.